Joe Martin NRC/Stages 1-2

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It’s Saturday afternoon and stages 1 & 2 are in the books here. Yesterday was a 110 mile road race with a climb at about 30 miles to go. Nothing new to report. 3 guys got away and up to 11 minutes. Jelly Belly, Toyota and Healthnet put 2 riders each up front and they were caught 10 miles from the finish. About 3 km out, going about 40mph I got crossed up, overlapping a wheel, and high sided. Needless to say it didn’t turn out too good. My frame is in more than one piece. My body is still in one piece, minus a fair amount of skin. I hadn’t fallen hard on the road for three or four years. It was weird in the bathtub scrubbing out the abrasions wondering how I used to do it on a constant basis. It hurt like hell. Toyota finished 1,2.

This morning, after about 3 hours of sleep, we started at 8 am. It was a 95 mile road race on three circuits. Brian got off the front with a Tim Johnson from Healthnet, a Jelly Belly rider and a rider from Mexico. He rode 50 plus miles in that group and got caught 15 miles to go. Toyota only had to put 4 ridrs on the front most of the day, but eventually Priority Health added a couple to help out. I can’t figure out the tactics of Pro Teams nowadays. But, that’s not anything I can control. It eventually came down to a field sprint. Big open, downhill for the last 500 meters. I had good position, but with 300 meters or so to go, got cut off and finished somewhere between 10-20.

So, as usual, the weekend is going to come down to who can ride up a 2.5 mile uphill TT. And time bonuses. My start time is nearly 8 pm tonight. Seems alittle late, but I don’t mind. Like I said in the last post, it is boring, but predictable racing. Pretty negative. But, there was no secret there.